This invention relates to dispensers of multiple rolls of sheet material and, in one aspect, to dispensers for two rolls of paper towels.
Dispensers for rolls of flexible material, such as paper towel rolls, are well known. Paper towel dispensers are widely used in public lavatories to dispense paper toweling for users to dry their hands. A roll of paper towels typically is rotatably supported inside the dispenser cabinet and either a crank or lever is operated by the user to drive a feed mechanism for dispensing the paper toweling. The feed mechanism typically includes a drive roller rotated by a crank or lever and a idler or pressure roller. The paper toweling is fed through a nip between these two rollers and the pressure roller is spring loaded or otherwise biased toward engagement with the drive roller. The tension resulting from the gripping action applied to the paper toweling as it is rolled around the drive roller pulls on the paper toweling to rotate the paper roll so that the paper toweling can be unwound from the paper roll. This tension varies in part depending on the amount of anti-rotation friction applied by the roll support. Nevertheless, pulling paper off of a suspended roll requires a transfer of energy from the nip, through the bonded fibers of the paper, to the suspended roll. To prevent tearing, the paper toweling being dispensed must have a sufficient tensile strength to withstand the tension required for unwinding.